"There's three things we can do with your mum. We can bury her, burn her or dump her." A fourth alternative -- freeze-drying -- could soon be added to British comedy group Monty Python's catalogue of burial methods.
STOCKHOLM — "There's three things we can do with your mum. We can bury her, burn her or dump her." A fourth alternative -- freeze-drying -- could soon be added to British comedy group Monty Python's catalogue of burial methods.
Next year the Swedish town of Jonkoping hopes to pioneer this novel way of preparing people for their final resting place. The body will be frozen, dipped in liquid nitrogen and pulverized prior to burial.
Most Swedes choose cremation, but that method was only approved after a heated debate in the Lutheran Swedish Church about 100 years ago. Clerics are more open to new methods of burial nowadays, said Archbishop K.G. Hammar.
"This method could prove more environmentally friendly than cremation. It is hard to argue against it on ethical grounds, as cold and heat should be the same thing," he told Reuters.
Susanne Wiigh-Masak, the biologist who conceived the method, has patented it in 35 countries.
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"The interest is colossal. It's almost easier to say that it's only Antarctica that hasn't called," she said.
NEXT EXPORT HIT?
This year, Wiigh-Masak has been to the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and South Africa to promote her self-financed idea.
"I have worked with this project for seven years, but official Sweden is largely unaware of the enormous potential this has as an export product," she said.
After a cold liquid nitrogen bath, the now brittle body is shattered to a powder which is dried and stripped of metal parts such as mercury dental fillings.
The powder is put in a biodegradable coffin made out of corn starch and buried in a shallow grave, since the traditional burial 6 feet under means it takes longer for the body to decompose enough to be absorbed into the life cycle.
Wiigh-Masak's method means remains are converted into soil within six to 12 months, giving nutrients to the plants above.
"A bush or tree can be planted above the coffin ... The compost formed can then be taken up by the plant ... The plant stands as a symbol of the person, and we understand where the body went," Wiigh-Masak's company Promessa says on its Web site, www.promessa.se, describing the process as an ecological burial.
Wiigh-Masak herself said she wished to have a Cunningham's White, a type of Rhododendron, planted on her grave.
Thousands of Swedes have already said they would prefer freeze-drying to existing burial methods, Wiigh-Masak said, adding that bodies of seven people were already kept on ice in Sweden awaiting further treatment.
"It has been so important to some people that they couldn't accept anything else," she said. People from other European countries, Canada and the United States were also interested, she added.
COLD FEET
Fonus, the Nordic region's largest undertaker, was initially positive about the concept but has since raised several questions about ethical, economic and environmental aspects of the method, company spokesman Ake Palmgren said.
According to Promessa, a "light vibration" would shatter the body, but Palmgren said "very strong force" would be required to remove dental fillings.
"We have to ask ourselves if this is compatible with the respect with which we want to treat our deceased," he said. Sweden's biggest crematoriums already filter their smoke to prevent toxic mercury emissions, he added.
Palmgren said Fonus also wanted to know whether animals such as rodents could reach the shallowly interred human remains.
"Isn't there a risk that our cemeteries will become a big feeding ground for all kinds of animals?" he asked.
Environmental scientist Morgan Froling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is researching the environmental impact of abattoir waste disposal, said that so far he had heard no scientifically valid arguments why freeze-drying would be environmentally superior to other burial methods.
"Once you scratch the surface, every argument is of dubious value," he said.
If approved by authorities -- the law on burials has to be changed and its environmental impact evaluated -- freeze-drying could be launched in Jonkoping as a burial option next year, local council spokesman Lennart Angselius said.
Source: Reuters
